Solar Panel

Solar Panel is a building that can convert light into power. The more light it receives, the more power it generates. 380 W is the maximum power it can generate, and it has to have a total Lux coverage of 350 000 (7 tiles * 50 000 on each tile). Covering a tile will cause less power to generate as the power generated is based on total Lux received. Requires more Lux per tile to reach full output (6 tiles * ~58 000)

It has two separate panels and one panel is three tiles wide, however they have no effect on the functionality.

Duplicants can walk on the bottom row of solar panel, so it can be used as flooring.

Usage
While their mechanics are straightforward, in the base game, using Solar Panels requires heavy investment in infrastructure.

Solar Panels cannot withstand Meteor strikes, overheat as easily as generic buildings, and there is no building materials that could mitigate it. This means they have to be protected both from direct damage and hot materials falling on them.


 * Transparent tiles, such as Window, Airflow or Mesh can be used to separate hot Regolith from Solar Panels. However by themselves they cannot withstand Meteor hits either and will require a lot of manual labor and constant material investment to regularly break up solid Regolith tiles and fix accumulated damage.
 * Window Tiles also partially block light, reducing Solar Panel's efficiency by about 10%. They also soak heat from regolith and might transfer it to machinery.
 * Robo-Miners can help with regolith dismantling, but will require cooling and protection themselves.
 * Bunker Doors can serve as reliable upper line of defense, but they require automation setup involving Space Scanners, which are complicated by themselves.

Meteor storms also decrease the amount of solar power generated each cycle, because either accumulated regolith tiles or closed Bunker Doors will block panels from receiving light. Badly timed meteor shower can block almost an entire cycle's worth of sunlight.

The second issue with solar power is its cyclical nature. If there are no other power sources to use as backup, each Solar Panel would need 9 Smart Batteries or 5 Jumbo Batteries to compensate for the worst-case downtime. More on Solar output.

Tips

 * Solar Panels can convert Shine Bugs light into electricity as well, although this only gives about 8-10W per Shine Bug, and only when they are very close to the Solar Panel.
 * Because sunlight isn't constant, a optimal solar panel placed in the sun over the course of one cycle will generate ~269W on average.
 * Spaced Out Logo.png In the Spaced Out DLC, Solar Panels can (and should) be used for easy, free power due to the DLC's complete lack of Meteors. Many of the DLC's PoI have deconstructable Window Tiles to easily get the required Glass for construction. The Orbital Cargo Module can be used to transport 600kg of Glass to a Planetoid without a Rocket Platform, allowing a new colony to build 3 solar panels right off the bat.

Gallery
Солнечная панель 太阳能板